


Formerly Unsuspected

by JiM



Series: Descent [2]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: M/M, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-18
Updated: 2011-04-18
Packaged: 2017-10-18 08:18:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/186847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JiM/pseuds/JiM
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alex Krycek's POV on what happened after the hospital.  Something of an epilogue to "Descent".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Formerly Unsuspected

I left him on a very clear day, a golden morning that would burn into a blue blue day of the kind I have only ever seen here at the end of the world. He must have known it was coming; the signs were all there. In fact, he probably knew long before I did. The way I never referred to the farm as 'home'; the large amount of cash that I always kept in the house; the fact that I never promised him a damned thing. I still remember the look on his face when he realized that the deed for the farm was in his name alone. He must have known then. I wish I'd realized it. It would have saved us both a lot of trouble.

* * *

It took a couple of months for him to regain enough muscle tone to walk steadily again. We saw the Finnish winter crackle and melt away slowly from a rented cottage close to the hospital where I'd first brought him. The medical team monitored him closely, putting him through hours of physical therapy and tests. He was no less eager than they and everyone was pleased with his progress. By the first of June, the doctors pronounced him fit enough to travel and David Winterborn and his faithful partner, Alec Barnes, took off for Paris.

'David'. I can't quite manage to make myself say it and believe it. He's Skinner and always will be. Although, those first few days, I just couldn't quite wrap my head around the idea that I was sleeping in Walter Skinner's bed, in his arms and he wanted me there. It wasn't like before, when he needed someone, anyone, and I just happened to be there. Hell, I pushed myself on him, I know that.

But after the hospital, I wasn't pushing any more. I didn't have to. One month out of the hospital and he's sucking my cock like a pro. I never asked him for that. He decided all on his own that this would be part of our new selves. He spent a lot of those first days lying on his back, exhausted from therapy, working out all the details of our new identities. I had the paperwork but I hadn't cobbled together any coherent life histories; these were both merely back-up identities that I hadn't planned on ever using.

But Skinner is methodical and detail-oriented. He constructed our lives as carefully as any deep cover assignment, then we began to live them. He shocked the hell out of me. Somewhere in there, he decided that David Winterborn had had a mid-life crisis after the death of his wife and had discovered that he was in love with his younger business partner.

So he started behaving as if he were in love with me. In a very hung up, straight-man-starting-to-come-out kind of way. He held my hand sometimes, especially if it was a tough bout of therapy. The therapist and nurses merely smiled gently and thought it was cute. He would wind his arm around my waist while we were out walking the grounds, leaning on me when he got tired. He brushed a kiss across my cheek or mouth most evenings when I left him at the hospital, or he'd smooth my hair out of my eyes carefully. Once we moved into the cottage, he made it clear that he expected us to sleep in the same bed.

I didn't mind. I actually don't like sleeping alone. He's a quiet sleeper and scrupulously polite in bed, never steals the covers or sprawls into my space. He likes to cuddle, I discovered, even when he's not dying.

And he seems to like oral sex a lot. I figured he wanted it when he asked me to stay and 'help' him. But I admit, he surprised the shit out of me the first night he reached down to feel me up. That was a hell of an evening.

First he finds out that I don't get hard when I'm bringing someone else off. There was a lot more discussion about that than I needed. He ended it abruptly, saying, "Not acceptable, Alex." Jesus, his face was grim when he said that and I felt like beating the shit out of him and explaining between punches exactly why giving blow jobs isn't much of a thrill for me any more.

Then he slides down and starts lapping at me like a kitten, all short, clumsy licks and tastes. I know I made some stupid squeaking noise because he grinned, even as he was sucking my cock into his mouth for the first time. It wasn't a good blowjob, but he learned the tricks pretty quickly and I'm not sure which of us was more dazed when he slid up beside me again, lips shiny and slick with my come.

I think it was me.

* * *

So much about me he doesn't know. The 'Alec Barnes' cover story he knows by heart. He sleeps beside me at night. He buys me shirts that are easy to button with one hand. But there's so much he doesn't know.  
He doesn't know that I like to sit and watch him eat, the smooth exchange of utensils like a victory dance. He drinks something deeply, swallowing easily and carelessly, and I am left grinning like an idiot and can only shake my head when he says "What?"

He doesn't know that I sent Mulder a postcard about a year after we got here. Something about the last time either of us saw Mulder has stuck with me. The look on his face as he left, knowing he'd never see Skinner alive again -- it stabbed at me sometimes, late at night. So one day, when I was in Wellington on business, I bought a cheap post card showing a simple beach scene on the western side of the island; we took a short vacation up there just before we moved to the farm. Before I really had time to think, I scribbled,

> Mulder -  
> He's in a much better place now. If it helps, think of him here. I know you don't have much reason to, but trust me on this.

I didn't sign it. I figured that Mulder would understand; it was the best I could do for him.

Skinner has never mentioned Mulder or Scully to me, beyond asking me to make certain that his will was probated correctly. It was, and some dead junkie received a military funeral in Skinner's place; his ashes take up space in a modest urn in a cemetery outside of Arlington.

He doesn't know that, either.

* * *

He knows something about my childhood. I know more about his, but then, I read the files. We talked a lot, trading stories, figuring out what could be woven into our new identities and what would have to never be spoken of again. We went to Paris first and I picked up a small but very valuable packet of papers "inherited" from one of the dead Consortium controllers. Then we rented a car and took a leisurely drive to a certain banking house in Switzerland. I think it was that long drive that actually laid the foundations for our friendship, more than anything that had gone before.

That was the first time I heard him laugh aloud for no other reason than good humor. We ate enormous meals on the road; it seemed like he was always hungry. I would sometimes catch him, those first few days, just taking deep breaths and flexing his hands. He still walked with a cane but he was regaining his balance and agility quickly.

His mental agility was never in question, however. He and my Swiss banker nearly came to blows over investment strategies for that packet of bonds and certificates, but Skinner managed to put together a hell of a portfolio and the Swiss accepted a commission lower than any I'd ever paid. We toasted that achievement over beer in Munich and pastries across half of Austria.

He didn't put on much weight, despite the feeding frenzy. His doctors had warned me that he would never regain the kind of muscular development he had had before. But he had lost that pallid bony look that had shocked me the first time I'd helped him strip down. There was some padding there now and I wasn't being stabbed by his hipbones when we lay close together anymore. His body was a pleasure to look at again and I made sure to indulge myself. I even bought him decent clothes, silk and leather and anything that wasn't his starched Fibbie uniform, just to show him that he didn't have to dress like Walter Skinner any more. David Winterborn just shook his head and wore anything his lover laid out for him in the morning.

* * *

I think that I realized that I loved him one afternoon as we walked slowly down the main avenue at Angkor Wat. I don't remember what I said, exactly. Probably some smartass comment comparing the herds of tourists with the troops of monkeys bouncing through the trees around us. But suddenly, he was grinning at me and then he reached out and ruffled my hair.

Such a small, fucking stupid gesture and I was nearly in tears from it. It was so *normal*. No one had treated me like that since high school and even then, I was only pretending to be normal. Alex Krycek could never have that with a friend or a lover; that man had always had to watch his back, to sleep with one eye open, to keep his lovers' hands in sight at all times, knowing that the betrayal would come from the direction he least expected. But *Alec Barnes*, he could crack stupid jokes and get cuffed on the head and laugh aloud and never once wonder where the threat was. Skinner has given me the chance to be Alec Barnes and, no matter what happens, I will always be grateful for that.

But that day scared the shit out of me. I spent the next few days trying to stay as far away from him as humanly possible, which is tough when two people are sharing a bed. He spent a lot of time watching me with his brows knit together, but he said nothing. He just kept up his David Winterborn act, friendly and attentive, the picture of a comfortably well-off man lounging around the world with his lover.

I decided in Sydney that it was time to leave him. I would find some place quiet and safe for him, get him set up, then leave. My job would be finished once he had a new life. Then I could go back to mine.

That was the plan, anyway, at least until I got myself poisoned.

* * *

He found me on my knees in the bathroom of our hotel room, eyes streaming, head pounding, just waiting for the retching to begin again. I have only felt that bad one other time in my life and I was in the same damned position - hands and knees, every muscle in my gut cramping. Coughing up that black oil alien had felt pretty much like this; at least this time, nothing was running from my ears. Small comfort, I thought, the spasms beginning again.

Then there was a hand on my forehead and one supporting my chest and I could really give myself up to the misery. When it finally stopped, I slumped against the tub, hoping that death would come soon. Skinner wiped my face down with a damp cloth and the chill of it seemed to get deep inside me and that's when I started shivering. He held a glass of water to my mouth and got me to swallow a few sips, but they came right back up.

I was too dizzy to stand on my own and he was still using that damned cane; somehow he got me to a bed. He made a phone call, then got me half undressed and took off my prosthetic. I don't know how long it took the house doctor to arrive; I was too busy moaning and clutching my gut. He was jovial and thorough, nimbly getting a basin under my head the next time the spasms hit, clucking professionally over the stump of my left arm, peering quickly into my eyes and ears. He poured a few drops of something reddish into a half a glass of water, then fed it to me a spoonful at a time. It tasted like ouzo and it stopped the next wave of cramping like magic. You have to love opiates.

The doctor left soon afterward, telling Skinner it was nothing more serious than food poisoning and to keep me quiet and warm for the next 48 hours. That wouldn't be too hard if he kept spooning that damned elixir into me; it already had me warm and floaty. At least I didn't give a damn about all the muscles I had just pulled or the fact that I had been rolling around and whimpering like a poisoned dog only minutes before.

"Sorry about this," I said hoarsely. My throat felt burned raw by all the bile I had coughed up.

"I told you not to order the shellfish." Skinner grunted as he straightened the covers around me.

"Sure. Blame the victim."

"Didn't you ever learn the rule about never eating shellfish in a month without an 'R'?"

I shook my head, then immediately regretted it. At my groan, he came over and sat on the edge of the bed. He brushed my hair off my damp forehead and pressed his lips together. "You look like hell."

"Funny thing..." I wanted to shake his hand off, to tell him to stop with the Winterborn act, to put some distance between us. But I didn't. I was too sick, too weak, too miserable to do anything but close my eyes and let him stroke my clammy forehead until I fell asleep.

After that, I just sort of forgot to leave.

* * *

Two weeks later, on a day trip out into the countryside from Wellington, New Zealand, I saw the farm. As a farm, it wasn't really much - a couple of macadamia trees, a small spring fed pond, three or four pastures and some idiot software developer's idea of a rustic little farmhouse. The house had a satellite dish, three bedrooms, four bathrooms and a hot tub. The bank owned it and no one had even looked at it in two years. The next neighbor down the valley was paying a nominal rental fee for pasturage, but it had nothing much to offer a serious farmer. It was about an hour and a half outside of the capital and four miles off the highway and days could go by without seeing another person. In other words, it was perfect.

I bought it the next morning while Skinner was out for a walk. Security systems were in place within two days while we checked out the beaches on the other side of the island. When we got back to Wellington, I took Skinner out there and watched his reactions to it carefully. It suddenly struck me as a stupidly romantic gesture and I guess I was quieter than usual. So was he. We walked the entire property line, looked over the whole house and the two outbuildings before he said anything. And when I handed him the keys, all he said was, "Thank you, Alec." But there was a look in his eyes I had never seen.

* * *

We moved in that week. The neighbors, Jim and Laura Brewer came over the morning they saw the truck from the furniture store. If they thought it strange that we had bought all new furniture and had no personal items of any kind, they never mentioned it. They were friendly, hard-working and incurious. The only thing they really wanted to know was if they could keep pasturing their herd of sheep and long-haired goats on our property. I looked at Skinner, he shrugged, the sheep stayed.

Medical treatments and our wanderings across Europe, Asia and Australia had taken a significant bite out of the money Skinner had paid me for his little list. Buying the property took the rest and emptied most of my prior ready cash reserves. It would take a few years for the accounts in Switzerland to start really paying off, so I decided to just stay where I was for the time being. You can live fairly cheaply in New Zealand, if your needs are modest.

Skinner was good company and we actually lived together peaceably enough. Even the sex was good, although we slept in that bed a hell of a lot more than we did anything else. Neither of us is young and sex is fraught for both of us. He never planned on being gay and I never planned on ... him. Any of it, really. But it's good to sleep beside someone in the night.

The past sometimes ambushed him. Something would set him off, an article about the United States or a true crime show on TV or some other damned thing would send him into a spiral and he'd spend two or three days grim-faced and silent. I think he hated me sometimes, for being a reminder of a past he didn't want to face. But no more than he hated himself. I just left him alone when it hit him; I've got a past, I know what it's like.

Then he'd snap out of it again and David Winterborn would reappear, relaxed and smiling, and we'd be fine again until the next time. Maybe I should have had them wipe his memory when they were fooling with the rest of his neural chemistry.

* * *

We both got bored after a while. There are only so many healthful walks in the country you can take. Skinner was worse than me, for all that I'm more able-bodied. Farming was right out and neither of us is good with sheep. Eventually, I remembered what I do best - finding information and selling it at a reasonable price. I started a small business and began making a modest income as a security consultant. Skinner kept the books and occasionally consulted; keeping abreast of New Zealand tax law for resident aliens took up more than half his time anyway and he was adamant about staying on the right side of the law in this new life.

We went into the city sometimes, watched a movie or a play. He has this thing for abstract art and the museums are pretty good there. We got friendly with the Brewers and a few other neighbors along the valley. One or two were nasty about having a couple of gay neighbors, but on the whole they were friendly enough, willing to leave us in privacy.

It was good. Sometime during our second spring there, I realized that I was content. It was a Monday morning and I was bitching about the weather and Skinner was grunting replies at reasonable intervals as he read the morning paper and drank his coffee. And that's when it hit me - Alec Barnes had a life; a home, friends, a job ... hell, he was almost married. It was so fucking domestic that I started laughing and couldn't stop, not even when Skinner glared at me over the paper and ostentatiously sniffed at my coffee, checking for drugs.

I should have known it couldn't last.

* * *

It was a cool Sunday afternoon when Jim Brewer found him lying in the dust at the foot of the front stairs. Skinner was half-conscious when Jim picked him up and at first, he thought he was drunk. Skinner couldn't stand and he kept slurring his words. Jim said that his hands were shaking like a man with the DT's but there was no scent of alcohol on him. They got him inside and were just debating whether or not to call an ambulance or drive him into Wellington themselves when I walked in. I stopped in the doorway and had to grab the frame.

I knew what it was. Christ, there was no way I could mistake that pallor to his skin or the tremor in his hands, the muscles of his arms rippling and twitching. His breathing was labored and it cost him some effort to open his eyes and meet my gaze.

"S'come back."

I nodded, not knowing what to say. Jim and his hired man were still there watching me, Laura Brewer was in the kitchen making tea, and Death was somewhere close.

Skinner's lips curved a little. "Three years. 's a pretty good score."

I shook my head, fingers still locked on the doorframe. "How bad is it?"

"S'bad as zat las' day. Worse," he said and then licked uselessly at the corner of his mouth. Somehow, that freed me and I went to sit beside him, nudging him over on the wide sofa. I took the bandanna from my pocket and dabbed at the slow trail of saliva that had begun to slip from the side of his mouth.

"Alex..." Never, not in three years, had he slipped and used my name in public like that. He saw my shock and smiled a little. "Doesn't matter now." His face grew deadly serious. "You remember the last job I paid you for? The one you screwed up?"

Eventually, I felt my head shaking back and forth. But I said, "You got more than your money's worth. Stop complaining."

That barely-there smile again. "Wanna hire you again."

"Shit, Skinner, you can't afford me any more."

"Simple job," he insisted. "Stationary mark. Five grand."

His face had gone remote and watery suddenly, like rain on a mirror. "Ten," I whispered.

"Clean," he said, remembering his lines. His fingers were cold as they trembled and jerked beneath mine. "No hospitals."

I nodded once. "Sleep now. I'll handle everything."

His eyes closed but his hand stayed in mine, so I was forced to dial with the fingers of my left hand.

* * *

Jim Brewer didn't leave the room. I suppose he wouldn't. He and Skinner had been tight since about a week after we got here. They had some 'big silent man' friendship thing going on. I had often watched them spend entire mornings working around the property without speaking a word.

Jim remained silent as he watched me hold Skinner's hand in mine and speak in German and English and finally, urgent Finnish. It took time to reach Skinner's doctor, but I finally did. She got me to describe "Mr. Winterborn's condition", including his pulse and whether his pupils reacted to light and how far the paralysis had spread. She was concerned, but reassuring. They had expected a minor relapse for some time now. They had been working on a booster serum that had produced excellent results. They would fly some to any airport in the world within 24 hours -- for a reasonable fee.

I gave directions for the serum to be flown to Wellington and figured on having Jim pick it up. Although I trust the Finns implicitly, having tested their security and discretion several times, I still don't want anyone tracing me or Skinner back here. I then called Lucerne and arranged for a wire transfer that involved a lot of zeroes. I wondered briefly if the old man was watching from whatever cool spot he'd found in Hell and if he knew how his money was being used. He would have appreciated the irony, if nothing else.

"Alex?" Jim asked as I disconnected the phone.

"What?" I was distracted, fingers on Skinner's chest, checking that his breathing was regular.

"David called you 'Alex'. I thought your name was 'Alec'."

Shit. I didn't need quiet, honest, thoughtful Jim Brewer wondering about that right then, not before I could come up with a decent lie. "It's a nickname."

Jim didn't blink. "You called him 'Skinner'."

"Another nickname," I tried, but my hand was shaking and I could feel my tongue pushing at my teeth, trying to lick at my dry lips. When the hell had I forgotten something as basic as how to lie?

Jim obviously didn't believe me, but he dropped it for the moment. His eyes left mine and fixed on Skinner's face. His expression softened some. "Is he dying?"

That, at least, I could answer honestly. "No. Probably not."

"He's had this before, then?"

I nodded. "It's been ... in remission."

"He never told me." Jim's voice is faintly questioning. I could tell he felt a bit hurt.

"He wouldn't, would he?" Skinner never would have mentioned it and David Winterborn isn't much for idle chat about his health, either.

Laura brought us tea then and Jim finally left me alone with Skinner who was sleeping lightly. I found myself watching his face, the small tics that I hadn't seen for years now come back like a bad dream. I wiped the damp side of his mouth again and wondered why my world had cracked.

* * *

The end was nearly anticlimactic. I sent Jim to the airport to meet the shipment the next morning. He came back after noon, carrying a small refrigerated shipping cooler. I walked into the house a few minutes after he did, having shadowed him all the way there and back, making certain there were no tails. He and Laura, who had been sitting with a sleeping Skinner, exchanged looks and I knew what they thought.

I bared my teeth at their unified disapproval. I hadn't left his bedside for a lazy drive in the country; I was doing my job. I wondered, as I cracked the container and cool mist poured up and over the side, when keeping him safe had become my job.

Inside were three measured vials of amber serum, six hypodermics and some alcohol wipes. The accompanying documentation from the medical team was mercifully in English. Six carefully spaced injections and Skinner would probably be as well as he had been yesterday morning. Or rather, as well as he had been at least three weeks ago. It seemed likely, from evidence they had gathered in other cases, that he must have been deteriorating for some time. I wondered why the fuck he hadn't mentioned it and why the fuck I hadn't noticed anything. Fury made my movements sharp and jerky; the vial slipped from my prosthetic fingers.

"Here, I'll do that," Laura Brewer said softly and took the hypo from my hand. She retrieved the vial and drew out the 30 ccs as I told her. She looked like she wanted to argue with me when I took the filled syringe from her, but I could feel the cold set of my face. She backed off and Jim put a hand on her shoulder.

I shook Skinner gently, wanting him to be awake for this. When he didn't respond, I started talking to him. I finally heard myself. "Skinner? Come on. The Finns came through with another miracle drug. Let's see if it works, OK?"

He blinked a few times, then managed to fix his gaze on my face. I held up the hypo and he frowned. "I hate needles."

"Stop whining. It worked out pretty goddamned well for you last time." I swabbed at the inside of his left arm and flicked at it until I found a decent vein.

"Yeah, but who am I gonna be when I wake up this time?" He grimaced as I slid the needle in, then depressed the plunger.

"You'll still be Walter Skinner. I can call you anything you want me to, but you're still ..." Suddenly, I realized that Jim and Laura were still there. What the hell - Jim already had a pretty good guess and Laura loved Skinner like a brother, no matter what name he used. If I felt a kind of sick shame at screwing up on the most basic tenets of undercover work, I kept it to myself. I knew I had lost my edge; I just hadn't known how badly.

The hypo was empty. I pulled the needle out and pressed a gauze pad to the injection site. "You're going to feel dizzy and hot for a while," I said, watching him rub one hand over his eyes, then blink rapidly.

"Why?" he asked fretfully. "It wasn't like this the first time."

"That's what you think. You just don't remember it. You were pretty whacked out for three or four days. I know, I sat there through it." I remembered those long days, sitting beside his bed in that huge room, watching the monitor flash and listening to it beep and wondering what the hell I was doing there. Deja vu.

I leaned forward and laid a cool cloth on his forehead. He gripped my wrist clumsily. "Is this still in the job description, Alex?" Even then, he must have known something.

"Just go to sleep. It helps." I loosened his fingers from my wrist and put his hand on his own chest. Then I started to rub lightly at the juncture of his shoulder and neck, where it always used to spasm before. He mumbled in pleasure, then closed his eyes and was asleep within moments.

* * *

I left him three days later. He had taken his first steps the night before, hanging onto Jim Brewer's shoulder. His recovery was pretty much assured. So I took him to bed and we made love twice, in a kind of hot frenzy that had rarely hit us. I woke up at 4 am and packed a small bag with a couple of changes of clothes and three or four thousand dollars. Then I wrote out a list for him - two Swiss account numbers that were in David Winterborn's name; the number of the Finnish clinic and his doctor's personal number; the passwords for the two security accounts I had outstanding. I walked to the highway in about an hour and hitched a ride into Wellington. By that evening, I was in Hong Kong and 'Alec Barnes' was so many torn bits of colored paper floating in the harbor.

* * *

God, I hate Hong Kong.

I should have known better. This is not a business you can drop in and out of as the mood suits you. The players change daily and old alliances aren't worth much if your contacts are stale. Which is how I wound up with two corpses and a knife wound in a greasy back alley. I never had any luck here, anyway. This is just par for the course.

The beating I took makes thinking difficult. That's the only excuse I have for what happens next. I walk out to the street, hail a taxi and get in. With liberal tipping, the driver stops at a pharmacy and gets me some first aid supplies and I tend myself as best I can. It's a pretty shallow cut along my ribs and it hurts like hell but probably won't kill me. I lost more blood than I like, but my shirt is dark and the coat will hide it.

I take the first flight going anywhere; I wind up in Korea, just as dawn breaks. No one seems to be following me, so I take a risk and stop long enough for a meal and a bottle of painkillers. Pain and blood loss have left me dazed and I can barely read the departure signs. I stumble onto another flight and fall asleep almost immediately. The steward has to wake me, his face troubled as he helps me to my feet. He has to repeat himself twice before I can parse what he's asking me.

"We've arrived at Wellington, sir. Are you all right? Do you need medical assistance?"

Wellington? Doctor? I shake my head. "No, I'm fine," I croak and pull away. My ribs burn and ache and I wonder if the wound is infected. It would be just like Hong Kong, I think as I walk slowly through the airport. In the men's room, I see why the steward was looking so concerned. The scrapes and bruises on my face aren't pretty and one eye is blackened. My head is aching and I am nauseated, which probably means another concussion. I clean up as best I can; the cold water wakes me up some.

Renting a car is out of the question; my vision has been blurry since Chin smacked my head into the wall a few times as we discussed payment arrangements. Wellington taxi drivers are more discriminating than their Hong Kong brethren; several pass me by before I start waving a couple of hundred dollar bills. It starts to rain as one finally stops and I fall into the back seat, giving the address and dropping the bills over the driver's shoulder. Two hours later, I am right back where I started two weeks ago.

The driver won't risk his axles in the muddy trench of a dirt road that leads up to the farm. Not even the promise of an extra hundred can make him get me any closer and the quarter mile from the gate to the house seems to stretch endlessly. There's no reason to think that Skinner will take me in again... except, he took me in once before, when that hit went bad. He looks after his people, or he used to. I'm not one of them any more and that was my own mistake, but he might give me a couple of days grace period to get on my feet again.

I refuse to stagger, no matter how fucking much my ribs and head hurt now. The rain doesn't help, though, and I slip and stumble a few times before I make the steps.

There is a light on in the living room and I focus on that spot of brightness in the gloom. Getting up the four front stairs is the hardest thing I've done in years and it takes all of my concentration. Rain is dripping in my eyes and I can't really focus too well, so the arm that comes around my waist is a shock. Another arm slides under my right shoulder and I dimly hear Jim Brewer ask, "What the hell happened to him?"

"Probably the usual," Skinner grunts from the other side. "Someone decided they didn't like his business style."

The two men maneuver me through the front door and into the warmth and light of the living room. They lower me to the couch and I grab my wounded side. Now it is hot and throbbing and I know it's infected. I am soaked through and shivering, but there is a fire in the fireplace and the warmth feels good on my skin as Skinner gently pulls off my jacket and the torn remains of my shirt.

I hear Jim speaking quickly and Skinner talking more slowly, a calming tone. Then someone is toweling off my hair and gently drying me.

"So, who was it this time, Krycek?" Skinner asks as he plucks at the blood-soaked bandages that have glued themselves to my skin. "Russian mafia? Ex-Consortium thugs? The Tunisians?" When I can focus on his face, his expression is colder than I've seen in a long time.

"Tong. A deal went bad. Very bad."

"I can see that," he says and peels the last of the gauze away. I hear Jim suck his breath in and know it must look worse than it is. "Can they trace you here?" Skinner asks.

I shake my head, even though it hurts a lot. "No tails. And I used the Arntzen identity. Alec Barnes is gone. No connection back here."

His expression unfreezes some. "Good. I think you need a doctor."

"He should be in hospital," Jim Brewer says worriedly.

"No hospital," Skinner and I say in chorus.

They start discussing options and I lay my head back and decide not to worry about it anymore. I am home and warm and I don't even care that Skinner is bitching about what a pain in the ass I am because his fingers are warm and so gentle on my face...

* * *

Two days later, there is not a trace of that gentleness as he looks at me across the kitchen table. My fever was down this morning and I could actually get up and make it to the kitchen under my own steam. He said nothing when I sat down. He just got up and brought me a mug of tea and now he's sitting there, staring out the window and drinking his coffee in measured gulps.

He hasn't asked me a single thing. At first I was grateful, imagining that I had been granted some kind of general amnesty. Then I realized that he won't ask because he doesn't want to know. He just wants me out of here. Somehow, his smoldering silence makes me want to start babbling, to try to explain. Clenching my teeth is the only thing that stops a stream of words from flowing out of me and drowning us both.

There is nothing of David Winterborn about him now. Maybe I threw him away when I tore up Alec Barnes. This is Walter Skinner, gritting his teeth, eyes locked on the fist he has wrapped around his mug. I try to take a sip of my tea, but swallowing seems like too much fucking work.

No hospital has meant no doctor, which meant that I have had to fight the infection on my own. It hasn't been fun and Skinner has had to nurse me through it. Which he has done, carefully and competently and in utter silence. He leans heavily on one cane now, using two when he goes outside. Judging from last time, it will probably be a couple of months before he can walk freely again. Jim or Laura Brewer have been around every morning and evening, just to look in on him. They look in on me too, though there is little friendliness in their eyes.

I know, I want to say. I know what I did. It wasn't what they thought, but it might as well have been. Jim Brewer told me so yesterday afternoon when he came in to bring me some water and some painkillers.

"You walked out on him when he needed you most, Alec." He slid a hand behind my shoulders to help me sit up. All the muscles in my back and side were screaming and I wound up gasping for a while before I could take the glass from him.

"It wasn't like that, Jim."

"Then you tell me what it was, Barnes. Or whatever the hell your name is. *Do* you have a name?" I nodded and tossed the pills back, then slowly drank the water, knowing that he resented having to help me but that he would do it because Skinner was his friend. And because he'd liked me at one time.

"Alexei. My name is Alexei." The only one I have left that I can call my own.

Jim took the empty glass from me and put it beside the bed, then helped me lay back down, watching impassively as I grimaced when the sutures pulled. He and Skinner had used 22 butterfly sutures to close the gash; Laura had driven into town that night to get medical supplies but hadn't been able to get me antibiotics without a doctor finding out way too much. Typical. I can get a miracle drug from halfway across the world that can remake a man's nervous system but I can't get enough fucking penicillin to stop the fire in my gut and the pounding in my head.

"Well, *Alexei*?" Jim gets this stern principal look on his face and I would have liked to laugh but it would hurt too much and it would just piss him off more.

"It was never meant to be permanent."

"You've been here almost three years, Alec." Even now, Jim can't quite wrap his head around the idea that I am not who I said I was. Honest men are too credulous. "What was it, you saw him suddenly weak and took off to look for someone younger, someone with a lot more money?"

I wanted to laugh again. I guess everyone around here bought Skinner's cover story. Except that I somehow managed to look like a gold-digging gigolo in the bargain. Oh well.

"He *needed* you, Alec. And you weren't there." Fuck, again with the guilt trip. Like he can do a better job than I can at that?

"Hey! I got him the drug, Jim. I made sure he got it and no one could trace him and that he was out of danger before I left."

"Who the hell are you people, anyway?" he asked, bewildered.

"We're just two guys who had a hard life, Jim, and we wanted someplace quiet to retire to. David is a good man, you don't need to worry about him."

"But you're a different story," Jim said and I had to nod. "You know, the first time I saw you, you reminded me of a dog my father had on his station. He was a great herd dog ... but he was a sheep killer. It took us years to catch on to him."

Then I really was laughing and I almost welcomed the pain. The image of myself, jaws red with the blood of all the lambs I've killed ... and all the wolves in sheep's clothing. I pressed my arm across my gut and threw my head back and let the laughter gasp out of me. But then my head was really hurting and the bed was spinning some and all I could say when Jim came closer was, "Woof!"

The last thing I remember is Skinner's worried frown hovering over me and those warm fingers on the side of my head.

This morning, he is gripping his mug so tightly that the tips of his fingers are whitened to the first knuckle. Finally, he says to the window, "How are you feeling?"

"Fine. I'll be out of here by noon."

He snorts. "You can barely stand. It'll be at least a week before you can leave safely."

"I didn't think..."

He turns to look at me. "Now would be a good time to start."

Jesus, I hate that fucking superior tone. It's guaranteed to start a fight every time he uses it and he knows it. I grit my teeth, trying to hold back the anger. "I thought you'd want me out of here as soon as possible."

His jaw works back and forth and I can see the muscles in his neck tightening. He still won't look at me. "It's your house, too."

I don't know what to say. I expected the anger, the resentment; I wouldn't have been all that surprised if he had kicked me back out into the rain. But this ...

"The deed is in your name."

"You bought it."

"For you," I say, so quietly that I can barely hear myself.

He picks up his cane and stands slowly, still not looking at me. When he finally does, I know this is my one chance to make it right, to explain.

I say nothing.

"Coward," he says flatly, like he never expected anything else and doesn't blame me for failing the test. Then, "Go back to bed." He starts to limp out of the kitchen and I am staring at his abandoned mug, trying to make sense of this.

"Dav... Skinner - why?"

I hear him stop behind me. He knows exactly what I'm asking.

"Because you came home." Then he's gone and I am left staring at the table top and my hand on it, the steam still rolling up from my tea into the gray light filtering in from outside. Home.

* * *

It's late and quiet enough to hear the rain rolling down the roof and dripping from the eaves. I heard Skinner go to bed a couple of hours ago. He fed me some broth earlier and took my temperature and got me fresh clothing and I went back to bed in the guest room where he'd put me that first night. After sleeping most of the day, I feel hot and restless. I want to shout, just to break through all this damned quiet. The silence between us, the stillness of the house, the muffle of confusion that I feel every time I try to understand what happened here.

I was weak enough to love him and he was playing at it until he came to believe it himself and neither of us is free of the other, it seems. Thinking about it is doing no good. There are no answers in my own head. So I go looking for them.

He wakes up as I slide into bed behind him. I can feel him lying there, awake in the darkness, facing the wall as always. I meant to say something, but all I can think to do is to lay my hot forehead against the cool skin of his shoulder.

"What do you want, Alex?"

"I just want it to be like it was before."

"Before what?" His voice is low and rough in the darkness.

"Before," I say again and press my bruised face more tightly against him. I wrap my arm around his waist and pull myself closer to him. He sighs and I feel all of the tense muscles slacken beneath my hand. I know I've won then.

"Are you going to leave again?"

I shake my head, rolling it against the soothing coolness of the back of his neck. He says nothing, does nothing, just waits again for me to say something. "No," I whisper finally, hating him for making me say it aloud.

He moves then, turning onto his back and pulling my head down to rest in the cup of his shoulder. "All right, then." And I know that he's won.

It's not so bad, winning. I think I might get used to it, in the years to come.


End file.
